SREB will help adults get postsecondary studies with grant from Lumina Foundation for Education

The two-year, $1 million grant will help SREB focus on two groups. One is adult learners themselves, particularly e-learners. The other group is state-level policymakers.

The grant was announced here today by Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, newly elected SREB Chairman. “This grant will help SREB states address the real challenges that many adults face,” said Governor Huckabee. “If we are to reach our educational goals, and our economic goals, we must reclaim adults who need more education for a better job and a better life. Technology can help these adults.”

SREB already sponsors the Electronic Campus (www.electroniccampus.org) - which now has more than 8,000 online courses from universities and colleges in all 16 SREB states. In addition, SREB and Xap Corporation are developing Ways In Mentor, which will bring a variety of targeted support services to adult students. The grant from Lumina Foundation will mesh with efforts to develop a regional SREB States' Alliance to support college-going campaigns modeled on efforts in Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas.

Mark Musick, president of SREB, said that one of the most important outcomes of the project will be a better understanding of the barriers that adults face in continuing their education and how state policy can help overcome these barriers. “Both the regional adult-learning and policy campaigns should provide materials and experience that can be shared across our member states and beyond. While the challenges facing adult learners across the South are significant, the challenges are not unique to this region,” he said.

There are several aspects to the project:

The Adult-Learning Campaign: This campaign will build on an SREB States' Alliance Campaign and is designed to increase college-going rates of adults in SREB states through the sharing of materials. The regional campaign will call upon the emerging expertise among Internet marketing firms and use practices tested by large distance-learning providers in the for-profit sector.

The Policy Campaign: A media campaign to increase demand cannot succeed unless there is a similar effort to increase the supply of programs and support, said Musick. While the grant will not directly support the development of policy, it can help educate policymakers on the issues facing adult learners in hopes of producing better-informed policies.

Working Toward Sustainability: One of the challenges will be to create cost-effective and sustainable efforts by the states. This will include pilot programs, targeted to specific industries, designed to reach underserved populations in the South - including African-American, Hispanic and rural residents.

Lumina Foundation for Education is an Indianapolis-based, private foundation dedicated to expanding access and success in education beyond high school (www.luminafoundation.org ).